Leaving Behind
by Arya May
Summary: In which Kirk and Spock learn how to cope with the past and forge a friendship. Post movie.


_**Leaving Behind** _

_**A/N: **I honestly feel bad for making Star Trek so angsty like this, but it needs a hint of reality too sometimes, right? Anyway, it was inspired when I was watching _The Original Series_ over again during the episode where everyone is infected with the truth disease which makes them show their inner selves. Spock became a sobbing mess so I felt quite bad for him ("_I never told my mother that I loved her." _That was just sad, sorry). And then I wondered about what exactly happened later when the movie was done and how Spock and Kirk even managed to get together because they still semi hated each other, I think. Anyway, I'll stop with the rant now and leave you in peace._

_I refer to Kirk as Kirk because I'm old school like that XD_

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They both had chips on their shoulders, of course- Kirk's from growing up under his father's shadow and well Spock… it hardly needed any explaining. The destruction of his planet and his mother hardly needed more reminder for any of them, and now with the threat of Nero done and over with, it was a part of the past that everyone tried their best to put behind. For Kirk, it was obviously easier for he had never known who his father was aside from his name and image, but for his half Vulcan commander, it was still hardly the case. He could still tell that Spock was uncomfortable (who wouldn't be?) with the issue despite the impassive mask always in his possession.

It certainly wasn't because Spock showed it or anything. Besides that incident in which he nearly strangled his future commander, there had been no demonstrations of emotion aside from small twitches of his mouth that signified a Spock version either a smile or a frown. Despite the fact that Kirk received an affirmative whenever he asked his First Officer if he was doing okay, the dead monotone he would recede back into sometimes which were followed by hours of meditation thereafter did nothing but raise the Captain's doubts. Or maybe all that was just a Vulcan thing he didn't know too much about, though he seriously lacked confidence in that theory. Once out of concern during such an occasion Kirk had tried to get Spock to let him into his quarters only to be faced with a curt decline that made him take back any intention on resorting to a direct command.

There was nothing to complain about of course. Spock was everything that a Captain could hope for as a second in command. The work was done and the _Enterprise _operated smoothly but…

It was just the… the _sentiment _of the whole thing, damn it! Kirk was pretty concerned- the guy had just lost his entire world and half his family. Despite him being half human or not the emotions were universal, weren't they? Maybe it was just Kirk's human side talking, but hell, he _was _a human so who was he kidding? He doubted if anyone else brooded over Spock's problems as much as he did on the ship, with the exception of perhaps Uhura, though her romance with the half Vulcan seemed to have evaporated the day he officially received his command of his ship from Starfleet. He suspected that Spock had broken it off but never really bothered to ask.

But really- if the ghosts of the past would continue to haunt his second, he could at least help being if nothing else- his senior officer (and friend, but he didn't think Spock thought the same way). He knew that Spock couldn't lie with his genetics and all, but he also didn't want to pry too deeply into affairs that were hardly his own. That might just destroy all of the fragile bonds between them both that had been so hard to reconstruct. Hardly needed nor desired.

So the help that Kirk tried to give came in the form of a willing ear to the things Spock had to say when he did, a person who talked to him on matters that were not solely pragmatic- matters like Earth and his own childhood and some scattered memories of him destroying an antique car by mistake- a person who trusted, so that Spock may just lower down some of the fortresses that he built around him and let another being in for once. It worked slowly at first but it did work. Being a half Vulcan and all, Spock had his emotional restraints on what he considered to be illogical, but he had what could be described as emotions all the same. His human side still made up half of who he was, and so could hardly be entirely ignored.

It was a few months before Kirk felt like he could say that there was a mutual friendship between them.

Sometimes he thought that Spock and he were both like Wrath, holding the past in both hands with a precarious hatred that was destined to bite them back and if not, destroy them both. Kirk wanted to move on from that stubborn abode. He knows that Spock wants to too- but there simply was too much regret and _what could have been_'s. Spock masked what he felt to the world, a cold indifference to hide the turbulence that was no doubt raging on inwards.

But even then, James T. Kirk will be there to hold him up. So that the ghosts would vanish. So that they would be left in solace.

And so as it is, so it was. So it was, so it shall be?

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**Please leave a review. It would be much appreciated. Just some general feedback: what you liked/disliked, etc.**


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